Response times still not being met by EPS

The Edmonton Police Service is still not hitting their response time goals.

According to the police chief, right now they’re getting to calls under seven minutes around 77% of the time.

Their goal is 80%.

But the good news, as Rod Knecht explained is that the number of calls they’re receiving seems to be trending downwards.

“Calls for service for the first part of the year have been up,” Knecht said. “In fact, we’ve been trending up for the last five years. Now it’s leveling off, and it’s starting to go down. We saw it crest in September/October.”

Knecht added that they have to give priority to high risk calls, so lower priority ones could get bumped.

“The lesser priority calls (like) the stale break and enters, when somebody comes home from holidays or work and their garage or house has been broken into, we’re not responding to those calls immediately. Because of the higher priority calls.”

Knecht adds that sometimes those types of calls can go unanswered for 24-72 hours, depending on the number of high priority calls they get.

He also added that because officers are trying to shave down their response times, sometimes they can end up being in collisions.

That’s something Knecht would like to see rectified.

Knecht also said violent crime is down in Edmonton. But we have had 40 homicides so far in 2016, compared to 20 this time last year. (km/sj)